This episode is sponsored by CURE Hydration. All right, I’m going to be real with you. Drinking water is boring. My ADHD brain is like, wait, we have to do this again? Like every day, multiple times. What in the world? And because I’m running from meetings to coaching calls to kid chaos, staying hydrated is not something I’m naturally good at. It’s not something I naturally think about. That’s why I’ve been obsessed with Cure hydration packs lately. CURE is a plant based hydrating electrolyte mix with no added sugar, only 25 calories, and it actually tastes good. The watermelon and berry pomegranate have been on repeat for me. I’m actually like really running low on those flavors, which is so sad. They’re refreshing without being too sweet or artificial. It feels like my water finally has a little bit of personality, which I enjoy. I really do. What I love most is that CURE uses a science backed formula that hydrates as effectively as an IV drip. So when I’m scrambling through my day forgetting my water again, CURE helps me to catch up fast. I throw a few packs in my bag and it makes drinking enough water simple, which for my ADHD brain is basically a miracle. So staying hydrated isn’t just about water. You also need electrolytes. And that’s why I love Cure. It’s clean, tastes great, and it actually works. And bonus, CURE is FSA HSA approved. So you can use those funds to stay hydrated. The smart way for I have ADHD podcast listeners, you can get 20% off your first order@curehydration.com I have ADHD with the code I have ADHD. And if you get a post purchase survey, make sure to tell them that you heard about Cure right here on the podcast. It really does help to support the show. Don’t just drink more water, upgrade it with cure. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults with adhd. I’m your host Kristin Carter and I have adhd. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristen Carter and you are listening to The I have ADHD podcast, episode number 75. I am medicated, I am caffeinated and I am ready to roll. Today we’re going to talk about the concept of our Future selves. It’s something that I talk to my clients about all the time. It’s something that I think about and access regularly. And so I thought it was high time that I share it with you all. But first, how are ya? Are you good? Are you super good? I want to remind you that if you’re listening in real time, you literally have 48 hours to sign up for Focused and get into our month on procrastination. It is going to be so good. I’m super pumped about has been speaking to me personally, and I have had to do so much work around this subject even in the last couple weeks. I think that no matter, like, how far along I get, I still struggle with procrastination. And I think that’s one of the very huge benefits of having a coach who has ADHD is that, like, we get to commiserate. It is not easy to have adhd. It is not easy to do all of this work on ourselves and still have this tendency to procrastinate. But I do think it is just part of the human condition and especially being human and having adhd. So we’re going to tackle it this month in focus. The workbook is getting sent out to every single new member who joins. And it’s just. Well, the workbook is a whole vibe this month, so I’m excited about that. But then all the classes we’re going to do, the calls, I’m just really pumped about it. And I’m actually really looking forward to my own growth this month as well, because procrastination is something that I need work on. I need to really manage this part of my life and get even further along than I am. And the last four weeks was total proof of that. I was definitely in, like, a negative emotion spiral. I was struggling to get anything done. This podcast is gonna be sent to my podcast producer late. It’s Friday. I usually get them to her on Thursdays. It’s like, this month, I could not get ahead. I could not get a handle on it. Luckily not. Luckily everything still got done. I say luckily as if I wasn’t in charge of it, but I was in charge of it. And I was able to still get everything done, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I much prefer to do things in advance and have it done, not worry about it. And that wasn’t my experience this month. So everything that I used in the workbook and everything that I’m going to be teaching in the classes are things that I implement for myself. It’s what helps me to get out of the spiral of procrastination? It’s what helps me to get back into action as soon as possible. So I can’t wait to to share it with you. So if you have been considering joining Focus, now’s the time. You’ve got 48 hours. If you’re listening in real time, October 1st is the deadline. We’re going to be studying procrastination. And if you’re not listening in real time, join us anyway. It is so fun. Every month we study a new topic and then in 2021 we’re going to do all of the topics over again. Because when do we not need to work on our time management or our emotional balance or, or our organization or productivity relationships? Did I already say that? I’m not sure. Ability to fail all of that. Living with vision, right? So like we are going to have to study these particular topics for the rest of our lives. If we’re being honest. These are areas of our lives that are not going away. Like these are issues that we are always going to have to make sure that we’re on top of. Which is why I’ve designed this program where in a year’s time we’re covering 12 very specific ADHD related topics. And then you know what, if you’re in it for a year, amazing. We get to take the work deeper every year. I’m so pumped about it. Okay, so today’s work, you and I are going to talk about a meta concept. It’s high level thinking. I totally believe in you. I know you can track with me. I know you can do it. We’re going to talk about our future selves. Okay, so here’s something that’s very interesting about adults with adhd. We do not visualize the future naturally. We don’t do that very well. And I’ve known this about us. But I was just brushing up on Dr. Russell Barclay’s book Taking Charge of ADHD. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. I think it’s like the number one go to amazing resource for adults with adhd. And I was just brushing up on that for the webinar that I did this week. And he was saying how visualization is one of those skills that the frontal lobe controls, allows, you know, humans to do. And our frontal lobes are not so great, not so fully developed. And so those of us with ADHD have a difficult time imagining the future. We have a difficult time imagining what will happen. This is why a lot of us make decisions without Considering the consequences, it’s because we can’t even really imagine or see the consequences in our mind’s eye. So side note here, I’m wondering if you struggle to visualize anything with your mind’s eye. I was someone who really struggled to visualize. I couldn’t picture things in my mind. And I actually developed this skill skill through vision therapy and through some brain training that I did. And it really helped me. And it also, it didn’t just like help me with this skill. It helped me with my ability to live with a vision and keep my like, end goal in mind. So if you do struggle to visualize, there are resources out there for you. You can do a Google, just do a little Google of brain training exercises, visualization exercises, or there might be actually somebody in your town who implements some cognitive therapy, vision therapy, that kind of thing. Because those skills are very helpful to have. Please don’t email me and ask me for direct resources because I don’t have them. I just want to throw that out there. Sometimes you guys email and you’ like, hey, you said that this is a thing. What is it exactly? I don’t really like, I don’t know what’s going to be available in your town. So just do a little Google, ask the Google for it and see what you come up with. But just know that visualization can be trained and improved. Okay, so if you’re good at visualizing, great, wonderful. If you’re not good at visualizing, then what I want you to do is create some sort of like external picture for yourself. So maybe you decide what you want out of your future and then you create like a vision board that’s just like an external visualization technique, right? Is where you can like cut pictures out of a magazine or print pictures off of Google and put them up in front of you to remind you what your future could look like. Okay. Because it’s not something that we do naturally, it’s not something that we’re very good at. And this is a really key skill for higher level thinking and becoming the person that you want to become. So do you ever think about the future version of yourself? Really curious about that. Do you imagine yourself having accomplished goals? Like finishing the goal, accomplishing it? How does that version of you feel, feel when the goal is accomplished? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? How are you acting? Can you envision who you’ll be in like a year or two years or five years? See, most of us spend a lot of time thinking about the past. Like the majority of our time. And we like to beat ourselves up. So we use the past against ourselves. We bring up the things that we’ve done wrong or the bad things that have happened to us, and we beat ourselves up for who we were, for how we showed up in those moments, and we shame ourselves all over again for the things that happened in the past. But we don’t spend a lot of time imagining the possibility of who we might become in the future. And I’m hoping that today that completely changes for you. So where I want to start is just talking a little bit about the human brain. So when faced with a problem or even, like a goal, our brains are wired. They’re designed to look at the past to figure out how to solve for that problem or accomplish that goal. Our brains are all about efficiency and energy conservation. And that’s actually really good, right? It keeps us alive, and we like being alive. So, like, thank you, brains, for being all about efficiency and energy conservation. That’s really good. The only time it doesn’t serve us is when we want to do the hard things, when we want to change and improve our lives. Okay, so our brains are about efficiency, they’re about energy conservation. So let’s say you spill cereal on the floor. Now, your brain remembers how you’ve cleaned up a mess in the past, right? And so it offers you the same solution that you’ve had in the past, like, grab the dustpan and the broom. Or if you’ve solved it in the past by grabbing the vacuum, then that’s what your brain’s going to tell you to do. And you’re like, cool, thanks, brain. I’ll do that. So it’s useful because every time you spill something, you don’t have to start at ground zero. You don’t have to start at square one and be like, shoot, there’s a mess on the floor. What am I going to do? I don’t know. And like, your brain knows. It’s like, oh, we’ve been there, we’ve done that. This isn’t a problem. This is what we do. And so it’s efficient. It’s great. So good. But here’s the thing. Because we’re constantly accessing the past to figure out how to solve problems. We’re constantly recreating our past results. Our brain looks to the past to determine what’s possible. So once a brain, once our brain has solved a problem in a specific way, then that’s the way that it wants to solve the problem every single time that the problem comes up. So this is why a lot of us reach a sort of ceiling in our lives and we can’t seem to make progress beyond it. That’s one of the reasons why. Okay, so what I want to talk to you about today is instead of looking to the past and recreating the same results for yourself when a problem arises, I have all of my clients envision the future. What does the future version of yourself do in this problem? The future version of you, who’s more evolved, who’s more of the person that you want to be? Okay, so maybe this version of you has learned how to better manage your ADHD symptoms. Or maybe this future version of you has learned how to accept yourself, right? Maybe this future version of you is out of debt or got that big promotion at work or is now a multiple six figure earner, right? So the question that we’re constantly asking ourselves in focus is, what would future me do now? This makes the assumption that future me is actually living like a more evolved life than current me, all right? And that is something that I want to offer to you that is possible that the future version of you would be living a more evolved life than the current version of you. Right? So the future version of me has a million dollar company. And the only way that she does that is by evolving and growing and like getting her shiz together. Like she’s really had to figure it out in order to get there. Current me doesn’t have all of those skill sets. Current me has the skill set of being a multiple six figure earner. That’s pretty great. Really happy with it. Way better than last year me, right? So that’s really, really cool. But the future version of me has figured out how to have a million dollar company. And that version of me is more evolved, she’s more efficient, she has better boundaries, she has clearer vision, she knows more of what she does is supposed to do. And she doesn’t get stuck in drama, right? She can’t. Because if she got stuck in drama, she wouldn’t have a million dollar company. That’s my thought about me anyway. Like, I don’t. She doesn’t have time for it because she’s like, yeah, like I’m a million dollar earner. I don’t need to get stuck in this drama, right? So the question that I want you to ask yourself is, what does the future version of me look like? Just play with it. Think about who you want to be in a year now. I think what a lot of people do and a lot, what I see a lot of my clients do is think of themselves in, like, 10 years. And that’s like. Like really a fantasy. And that’s great. Like, that’s really good. There’s no problem with that. But we’re very far removed from that version of us. It’s almost like we take away the possibility that that’s going to happen anytime soon. And so we can kind of live in that fantasy, but it’s not really attainable right now. Right. So I sure you can think about you in 10 years, but what I want you to spend the most time thinking about is the version of you that’s a year from now. Okay? So that version of you has evolved. They have better relationships. They have a higher bank balance. They have learned how to get a hold of their sleeping and their eating. And, you know, they’re not perfect. They’re doing it and they’re just getting better. They’re more evolved in a year than they are right now. They’re thriving in their life. Maybe they’ve raised the bar, like, 50%. Right? Can you see that? Like, what is that version of you look like? So in your job, that means you’re functioning at a higher level. In your marriage, that means that you are enjoying it more. In your parenting, it means that you have better relationships with your kids. In your hobbies, it means that maybe you’ve actually picked up a hobby like me. Maybe you’ve actually decided to do something to rest and to let your mind have some time to breathe. Okay, so your brain might be freaking out. Your brain’s probably like, no, not possible. And the reason for this, I just want you to remember, it’s because your brain looks at the past to find evidence for what’s possible for the future. And in your past, there’s likely not that evidence of, like, oh, yeah, I can totally do that and sustain it and be persistent in that. I almost said consistent, but then I stopped myself because that’s not what we’re about, right? So in order to make huge, positive changes in our lives, we’re going to have to stop looking to the past to see what’s possible. We have to get out of that default way of thinking. We have to look to the future. So what’s one goal that you’d like to have accomplished in a year? You can say it out loud right now you’re probably in your car or you’re walking around, or you’re doing the dishes with your AirPods in, and you can just talk to yourself like a crazy person. Go ahead. What’s one Goal that would be doable. Like, as you evolve. So, like, you’ve definitely evolved, but it is doable. What’s one goal that you want to have accomplished in a year? I want you to imagine it being done. See it in your mind’s eye. If you can’t see it in your mind’s eye, go cut a picture out and, like, paste it up. Paste. Does anyone use paste? That’s so goofy. Tape it up onto, like, your vanity mirror, right? Like, see it in your mind’s eye. You’ve accomplished the goal. It is done. So now I want you to imagine who did you have to become in order to accomplish that goal? You can’t stay the same, right? Because if you could do it now, you would have done it. If the version of you that you are right now could accomplish that goal, you would have already done it. So the version of you that you are right now can’t accomplish that goal. You have to evolve. You have to be a little bit different, right? So who do you have to become in order to accomplish it? What do you have to feel? What do you have to think? What do you have to implement in your life? Go visit that future version of you. That version of you that has figured it out. They’ve accomplished the goal. How’d they do it? How’d you do it? Isn’t that a weird question? Like, how did future me finish that book? How did future me start that business? How did future me get to a million dollars in her company, right? What did that future version of you think? What did they feel? How did they get it done? Are you here with me? I hope some of you are still hanging on. I hope you’re enjoying this concept. I think that it’s like, it’s super trippy to think about this. And I will let you know that I have really begun to develop a relationship with my future self, right? So the future me who has a million dollar business, I, like, go visit her sometimes in my mind and I’m like, hey, how do we handle this problem? Because current me doesn’t know how to handle this particular problem. But future me’s figured it out. She’s like, such a badass, and she just gets it done without any drama. She just accomplishes her goals with very little thought. Like, once she’s decided to do it, she just gets it done. And she doesn’t allow all of the drama and the thoughts to come in and try to deter her. She just is like, whatever, we’re just doing it. Let’s go. Right? So Future me’s figured it out, current me hasn’t. So I go and I, I just do a little chit chat. And what that means is like when I get an email that says fairly triggering before I really do anything, I think, if I had a million dollar business, how would I handle this email? Okay? Would I be worried about it? Would I be in drama about it? Would I let it derail my whole day? Most of the time, actually, all of the time the answer is no. If I had a million dollar business, it would be like, not a problem at all, right? And so that is one of the practical ways that I access my future self. I stop solving the problem the same way that I’ve always solved the problem in the past. Because doing that only creates the same results. For example, get a triggering email, get super worked up about it, write back a defensive response, spin out about it all day, be completely distracted by the emotion that I’m feeling, Kind of hijack my conversations with every single human that I encounter based on this trigger and essentially like let that email steal the rest of my day for me until I wake up tomorrow, like, clean, feeling clean. I don’t know if that happens to you, but a lot of times I used to just have to sleep in order to get clean and feel like I could start over again. Okay? That’s how past me would have handled it. But again, I’m kind of done with recreating the past. And so I get a triggering email, or I get a triggering review, or I get like some sort of something that’s like, really makes like I have this impulsive emotional response to it that’s like huge in my body. And I take a second to breathe and ask myself, how would the future version of me handle this? The future version of me that’s accomplished the goal of having a million dollar company. Does she care about this or not? Now she might, she might totally care about it, or she might just be like, yes, this is an issue that we need to address. But I’m not going to have the drama about it. Okay? Now listen, when I think of my future self, I don’t think of life being perfect. I know that Life is still 50, 50 no matter what. So no matter, like how great my relationship with my kids are, no matter how much money I have in the bank, no matter how many clients I’m working with, no matter what home I’m living in, what car I’m driving, life is 50, 50, 50% positive emotion, 50, 50% negative emotion. So I don’t imagine Myself feeling good all the time. What I imagine, though, is this ability to feel the emotion, process it, and then move on so much quickly, so much more quickly than I am able to do that today. Right? Because future me knows exactly how to get through it. She knows exactly how to handle triggering emails. She’s gotten a million of them. They’re old news. It’s nothing that she hasn’t dealt with before. And it’s like, no problem. We have a protocol for this. No problem at all. Future me moves through the world with so much more ease and so much more poise and confidence and self assuredness. And so instead of accessing past me, who’s a freaking hot mess, I go and I access future me. And I feel like right now, the version of me that you are getting on this podcast today is somewhere in between. I definitely feel like I’m in the middle. I’m not the past me, but I’m not quite yet at the future me, who’s like, I wanted to say, kind of like a robot. It would be so amazing to be a robot. This is because feelings are not so much my jam and I’d so much rather not have to feel them, but I know that that is just not possible. And it’s not the point. The point is to be able to feel and have the human experience and not let it hijack your whole experience of your day. Right? Not let it hijack your whole life. The version of myself that’s a year from now who’s a million dollar earner who moves through her day with ease, she knows that she’s going to have to experience negative emotion, but she has the ability to feel it and move through it and not let it hijack her life. That’s the future version of me. I wonder what the future version of you is like. So don’t go too far down the road, all right? I want you to think of yourself. In about a year, you’ve evolved, you’ve made progress, you’ve accomplished that one goal. Notice how I keep talking about like my million dollar goal. It’s not that I don’t have other goals. I. It’s more that I love to constrain my brain’s focus to one big goal. And I know that that’s when my brain is the most powerful, is when it’s just trying to solve one problem. Okay? So I would encourage you to constrain your focus to one big goal. So you’ve accomplished it. How does it feel? How’d you do it? How did future version of you do it. Go visit that version of yourself who’s finished that goal. Ask that version of you what they’re thinking, what they’re feeling. Try to imagine what they do in their day and how they move about the world. Right. If we can get clarity with this, I’m telling you, we can change our lives. I’ve seen it happen for me and I’ve seen it happen with my clients. Accessing the past is useless unless you want to recreate the past. But I don’t know about you. I don’t want to recreate the past. I don’t want to do that. I want to create the future from the future, not from the past. I want to create the future from possibility, from. From the imagined version of what might be possible for me if I just let go of this drama. What might be possible for me if I really learned how to manage my mind? What might be possible for me if I kicked procrastination to the curb or really knew how to deal with it when I sensed it happening? What might be possible for me if I was able to. To really manage my time and do the things that I say that I’m going to do? What could be possible instead of going to the past, go to the future. See what’s possible for yourself there. All right. I love it. I hope that this was really inspiring. Have a great week. I can’t wait to talk to you again soon. Bye Bye. Hey Adhder. I see you. I know exactly what it’s like to feel lost, confused, frustrated and like no one out there really understands the way that your brain works. That’s why I created Focused. Focused is my monthly coaching program where I lead you through a step by step process of understanding yourself, feeling better, and creating the life that you know you’re meant for. You’ll study, be coached, grow and make amazing changes alongside of other educated professional adults with ADHD from all over the world. Visit ihaveadhd.com focused to learn more.
